


i’m secretly on your side。

by aesterismo



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesterismo/pseuds/aesterismo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s impossible, Kageyama learns at fifteen years old, to figure out someone like Hinata.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i’m secretly on your side。

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled “Four Times Kageyama Felt Weird Around Hinata...And One Time The Feeling Was Mutual.”

 

1.   No one, not even Kageyama, can ignore Hinata for long.

He’s annoying.  That was the setter’s first impression of him. 

Annoying, boisterous, clumsy.  Full of potential.  Raw talent incarnate. 

He’s envious, yes, but also proud to be able to work with such a player. 

Not that Kageyama would never admit that, of course.  Not to anyone.  Over his dead body.

But he notices things about the former wing spiker, observes him in his transformative process of becoming Karasuno’s middle blocker.  

He notices, sees the subtle shift in Hinata’s posture when he stands on the courts, shoulders raised, sharp eyes focusing on their opponent’s side faster than ever. 

He notices, finds familiarity in the sight of Hinata concentrating, taking in shallow breaths just before he steps back into position with a shuddering exhale. 

He notices, relates to Hinata when the unadulterated joy spreads over his visage when he makes a successful jump serve, when Kageyama’s purposeful support (he’s learned it isn’t weakness, now, to rely on others to do what he cannot, to be a functioning member of a developing team and still be prove he can hold his own among their ranks) gains them a point and the lead.

Kageyama notices, before his conscience learns to admit it, that he’s changed, too.

Before middle school, for example, he never would have taken notice of another person, of another teammate, or become so aware of how the aura of determination around Hinata mirrors his own. 

Before he left his throne as the King of the Court, he never would have taken notice of such fine details about someone: the faint drying drops of perspiration set on Hinata’s brow after several cool-down laps around the gym, the birdlike curve of his wide yet tiny mouth, the chirrup to his cadence like the late spring evening air around as Ukai-san herds the team back inside, the taut lean muscle, his back and shoulders’ graceful slope visible under his damp t-shirt shrugged off as he hums his way straight to the locker room showers.    

Before he came to Karasuno, he never would have anticipated the strange feeling right above his ribcage and just below his chestbone every time he looked Hinata’s way and saw that stupid(ly bright and carefree and foolish and endearing) smile sent in his direction had a name. 

A name, Kageyama thinks – scowls at Hinata, extra cross and extra forceful when he tosses a ball right at the back of that unruly golden-red mane facing him during practice the next day – he won’t entertain any more than necessary.

 

2.  It’s impossible, Kageyama learns at fifteen years old, to figure out someone like Hinata.

He’s certainly tried. 

Most attempts fall flat, but every so often he thinks he’s _got it_.  An epiphany, a revelation, about why Hinata’s presence attracts everyone’s gaze, about the trick lighting that makes cosmic dust flicker beneath caramel-colored eyes, an distinct glimmer effervescent, about the words wading in his windpipe and the dazed discovery that he can’t look away, either.

It’s hard to think, hard to rationalize, why he finds the answer as elusive as shade on a blistering hot summer’s day like this.

He’s being dragged halfway down the beach by an enthusiastic Hinata, clutching his arm in an attempt to enlist another person to play water freeze-tag with, when he thinks he’s figured it out.  A sudden insight, a reason, why Hinata fascinates him. 

Because that’s precisely what it is, Kageyama decides, that holds him to the other freshman’s natural magnetism. 

Like being around anyone whose brilliant shine precedes their personality (which, in the months past, Kageyama’s begun to accept as a part of Hinata’s charm as well), Kageyama was just another hapless victim of the Hinata Bug. 

And like any nonfatal virus, like any contagious strain of the common cold, he’d get over it soon enough.

Except Hinata – calling out Nishinoya-senpai and Tanaka-senpai waiting for him to return with Kageyama by the shoreline, all frantic waves and spontaneity – can’t be compared to any curable illness.

Except Hinata – persistent, vivacious, simple-minded and open-hearted Hinata – clutches his arm as they switch gears to compete with their senpai in a three-legged race, squawks and screeches and sniggers at the taller boy even as they stumble over sandbars and rock formations and end up chasing one another, untied ankles doing little to keep them from tumbling and tripping over one another on their way back uphill to their umbrella.

Except Hinata – all flushed round cheeks, unkempt hair, sand-dappled knuckles grazing Kageyama’s wrist as they laid side by side on the beach, his lightheaded state only in part because they had yet to catch their breath because Hinata’s _warm_ , humidity and sunshine overhead aside, and he’s never felt quite this elated that they were off from school, here on a team weekend outing planned by Sugawara-san to “improve team morale” and keep them active while they’re on vacation – is impossible to ignore.

And from the moment he watched Hinata for the first time leap straight for the net at his set ball that, even with those clear eyes closed, he knew then that there was an influence Hinata had over him Kageyama could never escape.

 

3.  The oddest thing of all, Kageyama thinks, is that – against all better judgment – Hinata _trusts_ him.

Which, upon reflection, is probably the root of the problem. 

Hinata doesn’t start out wanting to work with him, let alone call him a teammate, but he does. 

Hinata doesn’t start out with the strongest abilities, the self-construct to put his personal development first before his growth as a player, but he learns.

Kageyama finds Hinata a quick learner, an instinctual learner, one who picks up on skills faster if he applies motion to his ideas, puts his intent to natural perseverance.

Hinata doesn’t insist that he talk about all his past, all his deep-rooted insecurities, all his complexes – but one day, Kageyama does.

The admittance slips out, unexpected, while they’re on their way back late after practice is over one mid-autumn night. 

Ever since their matches over the summer, they’ve fallen into a routine.  Because their houses happen to be in the same direction, Kageyama walks Hinata home while Hinata swings by his house every weekday morning to ride his bike alongside Kageyama’s and chatters on about everything he can think of on their way to school.  Kageyama doesn’t speak much by choice, still letting the morning air wake him up, but he returns the favor in the evenings when Hinata’s quieter than usual, bone-tired from running through drills and sitting through lectures all day.

“I was jealous of you,” he says one evening – while Hinata’s in the middle of a rant on whether green apples or red apples taste better – so sudden that it halts the redhead’s speech outright.  “I thought you were a big pain in the ass back then, since you were always so down on yourself.  But you had so much going for you, so…it pissed me off.” 

“In junior high?” 

Though he didn’t specify, Kageyama nods. 

“I kinda figured as much.”  He’s surprised how someone like Hinata catches onto things, how casual Hinata is about this.  He’s even more surprised by the playful nudge that accompanies the shorter boy’s wan grin.  “How about now, though?  Still think I’m a big pain in the ass?”

And Kageyama laughs – that strange feeling unnamed turning him skittish as he throws his head back, stares at the stars, lighter on his feet and in his thoughts than he can recall in years gone past – returning Hinata’s shoulder bump as the muscles in his face ache and swell with an unsettling sort of… frivolity?  Leftover endorphins, perhaps, on a second wind after such a long and hard practice? 

“Yeah,” the setter retorts, pedals back into place at Hinata’s side, realizes that he _smiling_.  “You still are.  But for a pain in the ass, you’re not so bad.”

 

4.  Before anyone asks, the ice-skating thing was _not_ Kageyama’s idea of an early winter’s day well-spent, not at all.

It was Sawamura-san’s suggestion, he remembers.   So their vice-captain must have put him up to it.  That had to be how it happened. 

Or maybe Tsukishima (damn that smug bastard for always having it in for him) told Yamaguchi who told Nishinoya-senpai who told Asahi-senpai who told Tanaka-senpai who told Ennoshita-senpai who used his connections to isolate them here on the outdoor rink in the first place. 

Or maybe Ukai-san (since he was always smirking while they practiced together, like he knew something, and Takeda-sensei wasn’t much better, sending him weird looks while he sat by their coach and observed) wanted to see them suffer in the name of “team bonding.”

Then again, Kageyama inwardly grouses – with a furtive glance over at the other end of the rink, where Kiyoko-san and Yui-san drifted along the ice, a graceful pair with their interlocked elbows and blithe smiles – the girls could have thought this awful scheme up, too.  Kageyama certainly couldn’t forget the Cat-Eared Headband Incident Karasuno’s manager instigated that time, what with their manager walking in on Halloween with the thing on her head and everyone on the team deciding to try it on and finding it _so fitting_ for Kageyama that everyone whipped out their cell phones to take pictures and Hinata couldn’t look him in the eye without bursting into hysterics for the next week.

But.  More importantly.  Hinata.  There was the other part of this equation that he couldn’t ignore, let alone shake off without (literally) ending up faceplanting into the ice.

“If you don’t let go of me,” he grounds out, despite knowing full well the doom that awaits him if Hinata listens, “in the next three seconds, I’m gonna drop you.  Right. Here.”

 “W-What— no!  Nonononoooooo— Don’t do that!”  Hinata protests, panicked.  He clings to the dark-haired teen’s arm like it’s humanity’s last hope, turns his best plaintive stare upward.  “If you go down, Kageyama, we go down together!  Survival of the fittest, right?”

Between the biting sting of cold at his numbing fingertips (he forgot his gloves at home in his haste to get here on time and goddammit he wasn’t going to borrow Hinata’s spare gloves, thank you very much) and the bruising grip of Hinata’s palms closed around his forearm, his unstable footing grows even more uncertain. 

“I only said that so you’d get out on the ice with me, dumbass!  Now will you let go of me before we both—!”

To this day, he still has no idea what – or who – bumped into them and made them topple over.

Pressed up against Hinata, lying atop him, he realizes that the other boy’s much heavier than he imagined.  His head stops spinning at last – though it’s a snap back to reality, really, at the light brush of Hinata’s nose against the bridge of his forehead. 

His vision swims with the heat that sets his entire face aglow, inhales through his mouth hanging open, struggles to remember to breathe while Hinata scrambles to his feet, flapping his arms like wings, and runs the back of his head right into the skating rink wall.

“Holy crap, I’m sorr—!”  Hinata, assuming Kageyama would be angry at him, shields his face with his hands.  “I think I just tripped, I don’t even know how it happened, but I didn’t mean to—”

But Kageyama’s already slip-crawled over to the wall, unlacing his skates at the start of the steps leading out, picking himself up off the ground and running faster than Hinata’s ever seen him, heading back toward the park entrance.

(He stops somewhere along the nature path, slumps down at the foot of a tree in the dirt, swears something inaudible in a shivering exhale, and thinks something along the lines of _this is the worst i am in such deep shit_ _how did i end up falling head over heels for this idiot oh my **god**_ and the rest, as they say, is prehistoric.)

 

5.  At least three hours later that evening, Kageyama reappears at Hinata’s front doorstep, bundled in several scarves and carrying what (he hopes) serves as an apology gift.

“Uhhhh.”  For his part, Hinata appears sheepish enough.  “Is that for me, or for Natsu, or—”

Kageyama all but shoves the (expensive but more than to Hinata’s tastes; he knows how much Hinata likes pistachios, after all) cake box into Hinata’s hands before he starts walking backward from his front porch.

“It’s for you or for Natsu, I guess.  But you’ll probably like it more than she would.”  Hinata takes a step forward, forcing Kageyama to take another step back down toward the sidewalk.  “I’m just here to pass that on, but I’m gonna go now.”

“Wait.”  There’s a strangeness to Hinata’s voice, an unmistakable plea in his command.  Kageyama whirls back around, that flutter-thud returning to him as soon as he sees the vexation on the redhead’s visage.  “Don’t leave just yet.  I want to give you something too.”

“It’s a school night,” Kageyama points out, perplexed.  “Can’t it wait till tomorrow morning?”  _When we bike to school together, maybe, if you don’t hate my guts now?_

Hinata shakes his head, swift-footed as ever as he places down the cake box on the nearby table and comes down the stairs to meet Kageyama. 

“It’s a one-time thing,” replies Hinata.  The forthright tone startles Kageyama, but he senses the apprehension in what Hinata explains next: “It’s like…if I don’t do it now, then…I’ll never get another chance to after tonight.”

Kageyama doesn’t get another chance, either, to open his mouth to ask why.

He’s never once been kissed, never been pulled by the collar and beckoned closer to another person (warm, eyes sliding shut, from being in his pajamas at home all this time, ruffled hair as if he had been lying around in bed before the doorbell rang), but as soon as their teeth click (“oww,” Hinata winces into the kiss – and Kageyama almost chuckles) and lips spurred into motion sooner than he expects at his acquiescence, Kageyama thinks he could get used to this, the intensity of the smaller boy dragging their mouths together in his eagerness, the lessening space between marked by soft mumbles as his tongue darts out hesitant to meet Kageyama’s and something ignites within him then, wrapping his arms around this bright, bright boy and _holding_ him, retreating for much-needed oxygen only after Hinata moves away first, resting his head on the bare patch of skin left where Kageyama’s scarves gone askew.

“It’s like early birthday and early Christmas presents wrapped up into one,” Hinata trills, sounding as breathless as Kageyama feels.  “Wow.  So glad I did that now.”

“Me too,” Kageyama says, adding at Hinata’s puzzled expression, “My birthday’s in a couple of weeks, so…same here.”

“Lucky,” huffs Hinata, burrowing into Kageyama’s arms further – trying to hide his burning face, Kageyama realizes belatedly, though he ruffles the crown of his hair anyway.

“Something like that,” quips Kageyama, though this time, the frost-chilled air around them and the lightheaded giddiness inside him elicits the start of a smile instead.


End file.
